


Unmarked, But Not Unmarred

by Jendy



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Backstory? Backstory., Darcy Is Markless, Equality, Fuck Labels, Gen, I don't know what I'm doing, Jane and Darcy Will Rule Over All, Jane's Soulmate is the Universe, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, This is a big Ramble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 15:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2234526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jendy/pseuds/Jendy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Darcy Lewis was five years old, knees scraped raw from being pushed down on the playground of the local kindergarten, fist swollen from punching the little fucker that pushed her in the first place, and posture defiant under the glare of her teacher, she came to the realization that she was different.</p><p>But she was determined to change the world, bare wrist and all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmarked, But Not Unmarred

Unmarked, But Not Unmarred  
When Darcy Lewis was five years old, knees scraped raw from being pushed down on the playground of the local kindergarten, fist swollen from punching the little fucker that pushed her in the first place, and posture defiant under the glare of her teacher, she came to the realization that she was different.

Of course, she had noticed that other kids had little marks on their left wrists. Corey Thomas had a small green leaf attached to a segment of a branch. Sam Berger sported a tiny blue spiral. Jenny Weiss had impressed her peers with a cluster of black dots that honestly looked like a giraffe connect-the-dots puzzle and traveled halfway up her forearm.

Kelly Johnson had asked to see Darcy’s wrist. When she presented the delicate blank skin, the other girl’s eyes had shuttered and she’d just walked away without a word.

The next day, Kevin Davis had pushed her down on the blacktop of the playground and quite loudly informed her that the Bible said she was going to Hell for being a Markless Whore.

(Years later she would come to terms with spirituality when she actually read the Bible to see what it said about the Markless and was, in fact, not destined for the fiery pit, and that Kevin was just spouting the same filth his own drunk father liked to preach.)

She had retaliated with her fist smashing squarely in his face, knocking out one of his baby teeth and sending him whining to the teacher. 

Her father was called in, only her father because her mother had cut and run well before Darcy could remember.

Evan Lewis was a site to behold when he stepped into the Principal’s office, a thunderous look on his face. Darcy gulped. She’d been on the receiving end of that glare before, and wasn’t looking forward to it being turned her way again. 

Her father wasn’t a big man. He was only about five-foot-nine, and wiry-built. But his shoulders were broad, and he had an impressive, dark beard and thick black hair pulled back into a pony-tail. His leather jacket and oil-stained jeans, coupled with mean black boots, and the skull winking merrily from his ear, gave him a classic don’t-fuck-with-me vibe that most people heeded.

He crossed the threshold of the door and Darcy was surprised that he wasn’t glaring at her, he was glaring at the principal and the teacher.

“What happened to Darcy?” he growled out.

Ms. Mary, her teacher, an almost-ancient lady with a timid posture but mean eyes, spoke. “Darcy was caught fighting on the playground. She assaulted a little boy-“

“What did he do?” he interrupted.

Ms. Mary huffed indignantly. “Nothing that should have warranted her attack-“

“What. Did. He. Do.”

The hair on the back of Darcy’s neck stood up at the quiet menace of her father’s tone. She had NEVER heard that come from Evan Lewis. He’d been stern with her. Glared at her when she was bad. Spanked her butt once when she was really bad. But NEVER had he given her the impression she should fear for her life.

Ms. Mary didn’t seem to catch on though.

“Mr. Lewis, I don’t think you understand the severity of what your… daughter… has done.”

It was that pause. That pause before “daughter” where Ms. Mary’s eyes had swept to Darcy, specifically to her unmarked wrist, with an unchecked sneer, that made Darcy understand for the first—but certainly not the last—time that she was different.

“What I understand is that my daughter has blood running down her knees and you couldn’t be fucked to take care of it. Instead, you’ve called me down here to accuse my five-year-old of assault.” He looked down at Darcy. “Sugarcube, tell me what happened.”

“Kevin Davis pushed me down and called me a… a… ‘Markless Whore’. And said I was going to hell. I hurt my knees, but I got back up and hit’im when he wouldn’t stop calling me names.” She looked up at him. “Daddy, what does ‘Markless’ mean?”

“I’ll tell you when we get home, Sugarcube.” His face softened a fraction, and Darcy knew in that moment she wasn’t in trouble with her father, and she relaxed. 

In the meantime, her father let out his verbal wrath on her teacher and the principal, both of whom threatened to call the police. Evan Lewis just told them all to go to hell, scooped up his daughter, and took her to the garage where he worked.

Darcy spent the rest of the day getting covered in grease with her father as he fixed cars. The garage-owner offered her the coloring books in the cramped closet-slash-waiting-room, but she was more excited with the prospect of getting dirty and playing with the small chunk of engine her daddy gave her to “fix.”

Later at home, cleaner and belly full of her daddy’s homemade goulash, Evan sat her down on the worn-out couch in their tiny living room and tugged off the black leather band he always wore over his left wrist.

There, a solid black gear sat darkly against the skin—pale compared to the rest of his berry-brown arm—and she reached forward to touch it.

“Whassat?”

“It’s my Soulmark, Sugarcube.” 

“Whassa Soulmark?”

And thus, Darcy got the Soulmark Talk. (One of several Talks, though this one was actually far-less Awkward than the Sex Talk, or the Puberty Talk, or the Boy-or-Girl-or-Other-Gender-You-Might-Prefer Talk.)

Everyone was born with a Mark on the inside of their left wrist. One day, they would meet someone with the same symbol, and touching the two Marks together would produce a spark of heat. That meant they were Soulmates.

“Why don’t I have a Mark, Daddy?”

Evan had pursed his lips. “It happens sometimes that some people don’t have a Mark. You weren’t born with one.”

“Whassat mean, though?”

Her Daddy leaned his head back against the couch. “It means you have a choice, Sugarcube.”

It wasn’t until her early teenage years that she would understand what that meant. She went through Sex Ed for the first time in junior high, and they explained Soulmarks and preached abstinence till they were older, and waiting till you found your Soulmate to do the deed. She lived in a small, conservative town where kids took purity vows and promised to wait for their Match.

During those classes, nothing was ever mention about being Markless.

Her Social Studies and History classes were a different matter.

She learned that only around 1% of the population was born Markless, and that up until the middle of the 20th century, the Markless were barely considered human. Markless couldn’t vote, couldn’t own property, could barely earn wages to live off. There were reports of Markless babies being abandoned in the woods to die, even drowned in rivers or simply killed. A Markless couldn’t get married, and if you were a female, Markless, and pregnant? Guaranteed, you were shipped off to parts unknown, you and your baby never to be heard from again. And it hadn’t even been that long ago that things like that were still considered acceptable.

Her first explorations into Markless history left her terrified, unable to sleep from nightmares of people wanting to kill her because her left wrist was bare. Suddenly everything made sense; why she was treated so horribly by fellow children, why she was never invited to birthday parties, why her teachers often overlooked her sufferings in school. For a while, she took to wearing a covering on her wrist. She had learned from her daddy that usually only widows wore them, but sometimes people would wear them if the Mark faded, a sure sign that their Soulmate had died.

Then she looked deeper.

The Civil Rights Movement had sparked a lot of change for many people. Including the Markless. Suddenly people were realizing that maybe the Markless actually were human beings, capable of thoughts and emotions, who deserved rights and privileges like anyone else. Markless could get married (though only to other Markless, at first), could have children, could go to college and get better jobs.

The sad part was that was just what the American histories told her. Later, she would find a talent for research, and she would devour global history texts and books on Soulmark culture.

In some cultures, she learned, being Markless was to be considered pure and holy. There were people that revered the Markless as a returned deity, one who did not seek a soulmate because they were already in possession of a complete soul.

(She was plagued by Kevin Johnson’s kindergarten taunts and she read the Bible in its entirety. Marks were mentioned, but Jesus Himself was Unmarked. It gave her a sense of ease. The next time someone spouted hellfire and damnation her way, she was able to quote scripture to shut them up.)

Other countries were worse than America in their treatment of the Markless. She read plenty of articles on Markless living in hiding only to be routed from their safe-houses and shot in the street. These stories made her angry, livid even, and it made her want to change the world.

Growing up, she felt completely under-represented. Everything was about Soulmarks, and Matches, and finding your Soulmate.

She felt cheated by Disney movies. As a child, it never occurred to her how wrong it was to have a storyline about a young woman who grew up Markless, but her True Love comes around and, Oh! She was actually under a spell all along, and she has a Soulmark after all! She at first hoped she was like those princesses, and one day she’d find a handsome prince who would reveal they were Soulmates and suddenly her Soulmark would appear and prove to everyone she wasn’t subhuman. As an adult, the movies pissed her off.

(In 2013, Disney would finally release its first ever princesses—two of them, and one was a freaking QUEEN—who did not have a Soulmark and didn’t get one in the end of the movie. It was amazing.)

She devoured books that had Markless heroes and heroines. Harry Potter was an entire book series about a Markless boy who was actually a freaking wizard and part of a huge magical community, all of whom were Markless.

(To this day, she still waits for her Hogwart’s Letter. And she remembers the joy she felt when learning that Rowling was Markless herself. It gave her hope.)

Darcy entered high school in 2003, and proudly wore her wrist bare.

For four years, she gave a giant fuck-you to the school system. She learned everything she could about the rules on discrimination, and could spit them out verbatim if a teacher or staff-member touched a toe out of line towards her Markless status. She kept abreast of anything and everything involving equality, joined as many organizations as she could, signed up for protests and wrote to legislature about discrimination against anybody. Because fuck racists, and bigots, and the whole idea of Soulmarks making you better than anyone else.

(She had her first kiss with Bobby Nelson. He had a Soulmark, but hadn’t met him or her yet. He was incredibly sweet, but they didn’t work well with the dating. They became good friends and he became a Marked-Ally.)

Meanwhile, her Daddy was proud of her.

Darcy’s mother had left them a few days after she was born. Elaine Neil had been Evan’s Soulmate, but that hadn’t kept them together. It was one more fault in the whole Soulmark system. 

That’s not to say that Soulmates never work out. It is to say that sometimes they just don’t.

(Scientists can’t even guess how the Soulmarks work. Numerous studies have proven inconclusive at best, and downright confusing most other times.)

Evan Lewis supported every decision Darcy made. At her requested, he rounded up a bunch of his biker friends and they stood between a maniacal church and the funeral of a Markless soldier they were protesting, holding large white banners to block their view of the proceedings. He stopped wearing his widower-band and instead went and got his Soulmark cut out by a cosmetic surgeon. He joined Darcy in every protest, because he loved his little Sugarcube and didn’t want to see her living in a world that didn’t want her to really live.

(He started dating a Markless man named Thomas, who always wore a vest and a bow-tie, and owned a bookstore. Darcy was their flower-girl at their commitment ceremony. She’ll be their flower-girl again when they are able to actually get married, because while Markless are allowed to marry other Markless, they still won’t be able to intermarry with Marked people for a few years yet. Thomas was quiet, but he was super sarcastic and quietly witty and liked to drop random humor bombs on you unexpectedly that you wouldn’t notice for a while and then they exploded in your face.)

She had the best dad ever already. And then she had two! That was so many dads!

At the start of her senior year, she was attacked at a protest.

It was at a school upstate, where a young Markless girl was being denied the right to go to the Fall Homecoming dance with her boyfriend, who was Marked. When the school maintained its decision, Darcy’s protest group had gotten wind of it, and they were there to peacefully fight for the couple’s rights.

Her group was made up of Markless and Marked-Allies, people who thought everyone should have the right to be with whomever they wanted. They stood outside the school, where they were holding a meeting over the issue, holding up their signs, handing out fliers and pamphlets, and in general just going about their business, when suddenly shots were fired.

Darcy dropped to the ground when the first crack of gunfire went off. A burning sensation in her shoulder was ignored as she took in the chaos around her.

There was a truck barreling towards the protestors, and a man was hanging out of the passenger window. She watched in horror as the truck clipped one of her fellow-protesters and came to a stop not far from her.

Without thinking, she pulled herself up as the gunman was stumbling out of the truck, and raced toward him.

Her tackle was solid and he hit the ground. She wrestled the gun from him, butted him in the head with it and knocked his ass out cold.

The driver didn’t have a gun and when she pointed her acquired at him, he nearly pissed himself.

When the cops got to the scene, she was arrested along with the gunmen.

The charges were dropped when video evidence was presented clearing her of any guilt. Nobody had died, thankfully, but several people had been severely wounded. She came out of it with a scar on her shoulder and a fire under her ass.

The happenings sparked nation-wide outrage and cemented Darcy’s plans to study Political Science in college. 

(She graduated high school at the top of her class, while maintaining a reputation as a Shit-Stirrer. Her Daddy, her Dad, her garage-family, and biker buddies all attended and were the loudest group of hoodlums her small school had ever dealt with. Daddy got her an iPod with “Sugarcube” inscribed on the back, and her Dad got her a taser.)

Culver was great, and she worked her ass off. Her dad’s wisdom that she had a choice from when she was five years old gave her the extra bravery she needed to date. A lot. Because puberty had blessed her fabulously, she had her pick of open-minded Marked and Markless people alike. 

But suddenly senior year was there and she needed an internship. So she applied to everything that was available.

She was also denied everything that was available.

Culver was a pretty progressive school in some ways, but in many others it was still steeped in the same bullshit as everything else. While it wasn’t outright stated they didn’t want a Markless as their intern, they came up with the stupidest excuses why she wasn’t qualified. Always after an interview, because new laws stated that applications couldn’t ask if a person was Marked or Markless.

“You needed to have completed BlahBlah 101 to qualify for this internship.”

“You aren’t the right fit for this position.”

“We’re really looking for someone from the English department.”

The excuses were still outside the realm of discrimination, so she couldn’t really do jack-all about it.

At her wits’ end, she applied for one last internship. For an astrophysicist of all things!

An hour after sending in her application, Darcy got a call.

“When can you start?”

No interview or anything. The woman on the phone, Dr. Jane Foster, sounded half-crazed and desperate.

The next day, Darcy met Jane at Culver’s observatory, where the woman was packing up a rather ramshackle van with equipment Darcy couldn’t begin to contemplate the name of.

“Dr. Foster?”

“Just Jane, please. We’re pretty informal here.” Jane looked Darcy up and down. “Can you make coffee?”

“I’m a college student. Coffee is my life’s blood,” Darcy retorted.

“Great! We’re going to New Mexico.”

(Later Darcy would realize that Jane’s own left wrist was Markless. Later than that, when Darcy was trying to get Jane tucked into bed after one of Jane’s 72-hour Science! benders, she would see a small cluster of strangely shimmery stars on the nape of Jane’s neck. Even later than that, over tequila and bad sci-fi movies, Jane would confess that she was Marked, but her Soulmark wasn’t on her wrist. She’d been born with the stars on her neck, but her birth certificate listed her as Markless. Jane had been through a lot of shit to get where she was.)

Darcy didn’t know a lot of the science. Really, she didn’t know any of the science. But something in her felt like this was where she was meant to be to help change the world. Essentially her job was to take care of Jane. She could handle that. And eventually she also got a bit of a handle on the equipment; she was handy with a screwdriver and duct tape. 

Then Thor happened. Darcy tazed him. She was quite proud of that, and frequently wondered how she would word that on her resume.

Her universe expanded quite substantially after that. Suddenly there was concrete evidence (for her at least) that there was life beyond planet Earth. 

And they too had Soulmarks. Though the way they dealt with them was completely different.

For example, Thor actually had multiple Soulmarks. And they were names. Five names, emblazoned on his body in various places, written in a language unknown to Midgardians.

He explained that four of them were for his warrior companions, Fandral, Hogun, Vollstag, and the Lady Sif. The fifth name was that of his brother, Loki, for whom he cared deeply. According to Thor, on Asgard being a Soulmate didn’t mean it had to be a romantic link. They only meant he had five people he could trust with his life, with whom he could form an unbreakable bond.

Also, just because you had that person’s name, didn’t mean they had yours.

“My brother, Loki, has no Soulmarks as you call them. I have his name, because I hold great love and affection for him. It is not to say my brother does not love me in return. Just because his presence makes me feel complete, does not mean that I complete him in the same way.” He sounded a bit sad about that, but he accepted it.

When Darcy explained she was Markless, Thor grinned.

“It is a fine thing for a person to have no Soulmark, Darcy Lewis. It means you can make a choice about who completes you, and those you choose should feel honored.”

(Thor was especially enthusiastic about Jane’s Soulmark when he discovered it. Darcy only got to hear the second-hand account of it, but even her cynical self swooned over it.

“Jane, this is the mark of Yggdrasil! You are most blessed indeed. Your soul is completed by the Universe itself.”)

Hearing how Asgard viewed Soulmarks made Darcy more determined than ever to lobby for change in regards to the Markless.

The SHIELD happened (and stole her freaking iPod), and the Destroyer, and Darcy once again didn’t shy from a fight when she was scared shitless as she ran to get people to safety, and Thor left. Darcy decided after she graduated she was sticking with Jane. Because Jane’s soul was the universe, and Darcy was going to change the world with her because she chose it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, the whole Soulmates/Soulmarks thing is not new, by any means. This is just something that's rattling around in my brain. Unbeta'd and will probably remain that way. I'm just pounding stuff out between homework assignments. I have an idea to continue this, exploring Markless Darcy and her making her way through the world. This was more or less just a kind of prologue to a story with actual dialogue and action and a story-arc of sorts. So yeah. Cheers.


End file.
